Nobody's mind is being changed here so I will simply unsub for now. Nice talking with everybody.

 

But when you delete threads, you delete the good along with the bad and you're deleting other peoples' contributions, not just your own. Doesn't show much confidence in the free market of ideas. The more threads you delete, people will have less incentive to make thoughtful contributions. Why spend the time to make a great post when it's likely to be deleted.

BTW, I only know of 4 threads deleted by you guys recently--not sure if there's more--but there was some very good discussion from which I was learning a lot.

What do you mean by Atlas shrugged--something to do with MM--have you ever explained in more detail?

 

You're joking right? Just making sure.

 

What's the big deal.... just buy from Canada and drive back to US. I can see US turning into that city in Demolition Man.

 

You mean like when us free US citizens started buying legal prescription drugs from Canada and the pharmaceutical companies lobbied our government to put a stop to it?

You mean like that?

 

Wow, a little off what I was expecting from the title. Here's how I sum it up. In a sense I agree with Charles, the government needs to stop attempting more socialist approaches, that is my opinion and I'm entitled to it. I agree with per say, helping the needy, but who's to say who's needy? That's the whole point with welfare having people who sit on their asses in trailer parks getting our hard earned money and tossing illegals in the mix along with the bailouts and over the course of time, we are the ones who are going to have to pay it off.

No one would want to turn down a needy child or someone who works for what they can but just were in a bad spot in life whether growing up, didn't have the opportunity, not as fortunate so forth. However, I want to have the choice WHERE my money goes because if you trust the government to do it for you with it's progress over the years sorry but, that's a bit naive IMO. Broken down to smaller groups instead of one big hierarchy organization (aka Government) for people assisting to do good for their community would prosper far better than what is going on now.

The last line: If our money is being spent for what "they" want to spent it on and who to help, what's motivating those who are reaping its benefits by doing nothing? Take those benefits away forces instinctual survival to actually do something with their life. Add charity contributions from those we see who ARE making effort at MY own choice with my money and prosperity would go much farther than what we see now. This is why most do not care or resist having their money making decisions taken away from them to help other people. That's infringing on freedom of choice and taking it away bit by bit.

 

What does the "Black Market" have to do with having car manufacturers build more fuel efficient cars? Enlighten us, I loves me some conspiracy theories.

Dictator-in-Chief.....

Well, we don't have to agree; that's what elections are for. Vote and be involved. What else are you proposing?

Maybe we should elect people that believe they can improve the government instead of people that believe they are part of the problem...

 

I'm a little late to the party this many pages in, but I wanted to add my $.2. While I hope the people creating the laws may consider it for the common good this may not always be the case. There are also unintended consequences of any legislation. They are harder to see but can some times cause the opposite result. Here is an example... We'll All Be Driving Obamamobiles Despite the title this article isn't meant to bash Obama. I'll try to summarize because its kind of long.

"In 1976 an auto industry already with quality struggles and difficulty meeting the emissions and safety regulations got hit with Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. The goal of CAFE was to eliminate the large vehicles with poor milage that Americans prefer. In this goal it was initially largely successful as by 1985 the big three had purged their lineup of most of their large car offerings. In their place were smaller front wheel drive cars. They made attempts with the Pinto, Vega, Omni, and so on but with little success and often dramatic failure."
These crappy little cars and people missing all the space and features from the older vehicles all jumped on board when the car companies began producing suv's. It provided everything the small cars lacked, but the poor gas mileage was back.
The suv craze that just ended was driven by a central source that manipulated the market in ways that produced results it could not foresee. That source being the one that is rarely looked at for the consequences of its actions, where someone or something else is always to blame instead, the US central government.

What would have happened if the CAFE standards weren't put in place? We could be in a worse or better position than we are now but we will never know.

As for examples of the free market someone was asking for I think computer operating systems is a good example. The major three OS's (Windows, OSX, Linux) came about with out any government mandate. Sure there were some lawsuits, but they never said we need to give money to Linux or OSX because windows has the larger market share.

 

The government has set a standard and is not saying anything as to how the auto companies are to hit that standard. It is their decision as to what to make and sell. This is necessary because America in general is driven by short sighted instant gratification. How many of those SUV drivers were screaming like stuck pigs when gas was $4.50/gallon but now that it has dropped again, they are right back to buying SUVs.

Those Pinto, Vega, Omni and the likes from US makers failed because they were pieces of ****. Toyota and Honda at the same time were selling the same types of small cars and taking over the US market with them. Japan understood what the market needed and executed well on it. We did not and here we are now.

If we are talking free market with out government intervention then we never should have bailed out GM and Chrysler. Let the strong service, which I personally agree with.

I don't know if anyone remembers but the US lead in development of Hybrid when they were first developed. The Clinton admin. Stated that the big 3 needed to invest in these or face higher CAFE standards. They choose hybrids and had them running before anyone else. The Bush admin took over and rolled by this requirement and the big 3 dropped hybrids quickly and went back to what they knew. During this time the Japanese in response to seeing the US hybrids started their own so as not to be left behind. The difference was that they continued development when we stopped and they now own the Hybrid market. All because they can see long term, this is why we need CAFE until our manufactures start to get it. IMHO.

 

You're quite right about some of this technology. It's called "greenwashing."

In other words, you develop working plug in electric vehicles- the public loves them, and buys them. So they plug in every night and they no longer use as much gasoline. Where does the electric power come from?

Coal plants- filthiest source of energy around. So you burn more coal to use less gasoline, unless you finesse things in a way that balances things out.

I like Obama, but some of this technology does not work nearly as well as it's advocates claim it does, be it solar, wind, or pig farts.